


say peace

by enmity



Category: Persona 2, Persona Series
Genre: Background Canon-Typical Het, F/F, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 08:02:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11398437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: Ever since Lisa decided out of the blue that the only person she needed in her life was Suou-senpai from class 3-B (tall, weird hair, rides a bike), Chikalin can’t even keep track of the number of times she’s heard people—boys and girls alike—expressing their opinions on the matter, relieved or dismayed or otherwise.And Chikalin would know; she counts herself as one of the latter.





	say peace

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try writing for this ship, but Lisa's unambiguous and honestly really weird obsession with Tatsuya during the first half of Innocent Sin is really hard to get around, so, well...

So, like, let’s get this out of the way first. Lisa’s really pretty. That’s supposed to be a given, right? Chikalin thinks so, at least. People always seem bring up her looks wherever they go (sometimes favorably, more often not) but that’s not what made Chikalin stand up straighter, made her take notice when she saw Lisa stroll into the restaurant, laughing with her ever-present group of friends.

It’s not something that’s easily put to words; she just has a little bit of everything. A sunshine of a smile is just the first thing that comes to mind. Chikalin could easily picture Lisa a model, or a pop singer launching her debut. Up there on the stage, singing a song for millions.

(But—and she purses her lips at the thought—that’s what everyone else thinks too, right? Thinking of Lisa in that way makes her seem less like an object of affection, and more like a… well, an  _object_. Chikalin never liked the idea of that.)

It’s not like she doesn’t have sources backing her up. Ever since Lisa decided out of the blue that the only person she needed in her life was Suou-senpai from class 3-B (tall, weird hair, rides a bike), Chikalin can’t even keep track of the number of times she’s heard people—boys and girls alike—expressing their opinions on the matter, relieved or dismayed or otherwise.

She takes notes:

“Like, I bet she’s only after Suou to boost her chances of being crowned Miss Sevens. That’s totally something  _she_ would do. Who does she think she is?”

“Well, guess I can say goodbye to my chances of getting with Tatsuya… there’s no way he’d turn her down.”

“Ah, but she hasn’t confessed yet. Isn’t his coldness kind of suspicious, though?”

“Wouldn’t they make a great couple? Like a prince and a princess… I’m rooting for them.”

And Chikalin would know, because she counts herself as one of the latter two. Even if she doesn’t talk about it. Collecting rumors is one thing, but having one spread about her? That’s another. None the least if it’s true. People might remember her more as the chatty, bubbly girl who sips milkshakes and wears feathers in her hair than a writer for the school paper, but she’s not  _stupid_ ; Chikalin knows how these things go. The rumor mill is merciless when turned against you.

If all the people-watching she’s done this past year have taught her anything, it’s that there’s a sense of inevitability in seeing people throw themselves headlong into relationships and confessions, only to witness them falter. Some people would laugh, and call it youth. Chikalin thinks of it as something she’d rather stand back and witness, rather than be involved in. It’s more fun to watch. At least, that’s what she tells herself. A crush isn’t going to make her forget it.

 

 

 

It would be different, she thinks, if she actually has a chance—but, as things stand, she doesn’t.

Rumors, at least the good ones, always have a grain of truth to them. With so many people’s skins melting off their faces and the school pageant coming up, Lisa’s in the best position to snag her place as queen of the school. Not that she even needs some guy’s help to achieve that, even if he is tall and cool and popular. The type that other girls would like, would harbor jealousy and resentment over. Chikalin couldn’t hope to understand, but maybe that’s the reason Lisa likes him so much: less affection, and more a means to an end.

The thought is comforting in a strange way. She doesn’t even notice how vindictive the speculation makes her seem until she pieces it together, like a puzzle, over her usual order of burgers and strawberry soda during a slow Tuesday afternoon.

So what, is what she thinks, loopy straw pressed between her teeth. Even peppy, bright Chika Ueda can be bitter, if she tries hard enough. She can’t say it doesn’t sting, to look at Lisa looking at him, and then she has to remind herself that jealousy is part of youth, too. Right?

What does he have that I don’t? She should probably know better than ask herself such trivial questions, but in the end, it’s too easy to play the role of a hopeless suitor.

So when a boy from her class stops by her table, asking her all too casually if she’s dating someone, Chikalin replies with a smile and a “no” so decisive, he probably mistook it for a sliver of a chance. By the way, would you be interested in some fresh info? I heard there’s a huge maze in the back of Club Zodiac. Did you know that? That’s what people say, anyway. Oh, and, she’s sorry, but she’s not looking for a boyfriend right now.

(Or ever, but she decides to leave that part out; it’s safer to give boys the benefit of the doubt.)

 

 

 

They pass each other by on her way to Peace Diner one day. She notices Lisa’s bright blue eyes first and the fact that her friends are absent second. Chikalin smiles, waves; a vague sense of recognition crosses the other girl’s face before fading in a split second, cooling into neutrality.

“Wai! Um… you’re Ueda, right? From the school paper? Hanaji’s in my class? I’ve seen you around—not like I can miss you with that blue hair. What do you want?”

It strikes her that they’ve never even exchanged proper conversation before. They know  _of_  each other—but Chikalin’s like that with a lot of people. That’s the kind of thing that comes with the job. She wants Lisa to be different. She’s sure that a lot of boys would say the same line, though.

“Mm-hmm. Chikalin, the one and only!” She grins. “I’m just saying hello! You’ve been the subject of a lot of rumors lately, actually. Are you going somewhere?”

Lisa, dropping her smile, doesn’t answer for an overlong second. “You’re… going to Peace Diner, right? I was supposed to meet my friends at Zodiac, but… Well, I promised them, so.”

Lisa averts her gaze, sidelong and brief. Somehow, she doesn’t seem to be too enthused at the prospect, but Chikalin knows it’s not her place to ask. They’re acquaintances only barely treading the surface of friendship, which even then might be overselling it: come to think of it, she hardly ever sees Lisa  _without_ Mami and Miho close by. Chikalin almost wonders what that says about Lisa, but a few possibilities come to mind and none of them are pretty, so she catches herself in time, feeling a tinge of guilt. She must be used to people jumping to conclusions by her appearance alone.

“Oh! I see,” Chikalin says brightly. “We’re both going to Yumezaki, then. Let’s go together!”

Lisa’s smile is tight, oddly guarded, but she nods. “Alright.”

The walk is quiet and unreasonably stilted. Lisa’s fast; her strides are longer and more purposeful, her soles dragging briskly over the pavement as Chikalin trails, behind but not by far. Her blonde hair catches the light, a contrast to the dark of their uniform. One-two, one-two, the rhythm goes, and when Chikalin catches up to walk alongside her she looks up minutely from the shadows at their feet, stretching amalgamate into something bigger and terribly formless and together beneath the sun. She raises her chin, and if she finds something in all of this worth remarking upon, then she doesn't say it. The silence stays where it is: in the gap between their shoulders, settling.

Chikalin waves when they part ways at an intersection. She watches Lisa disappear at a corner, the gesture unreturned, her face soon lost in the middle of the busy crowd. Her hand falls to her side as she feels her expression soften, a broader smile tugging at her mouth, something unselfconscious and private and pleased. She turns around, towards the opposite direction, and by the time she’s pushing at the glass doors of Peace Diner the moment is over, and the glimmer has dissipated. The taste of strawberry milk is a little sweeter today. The condensation runs cool down the cup and onto her hand, but she doesn’t care.

 

 

 

It doesn’t keep her up at night, the crush. But sometimes—

“What’s wrong? Chikalin?”

She blinks rapidly at the sound of Hanakouji-senpai’s voice. “Oh. Huh? What is it?”

“You’re spacing out,” Hanakouji says. “Are you alright? It’s not like you to be tired.”

“It’s not that,” Chikalin says, but she presses her hands to her cheeks anyway in a show of waking herself up. The daydream scatters in an instant, lifted and blown away like fog. Lisa’s skirt flutters as she disappears. “Sorry, maybe a little... Chikalin stayed up last night to watch a movie.”

“A horror movie?” says someone.

“That doesn’t sound like you,” a boy named Nobuya points out, suddenly forgetting the photographs he’s supposed to be sorting. “I thought you were afraid of the dark? I bet you were daydreaming.”

“Oh? Chikalin? Do you have someone on your mind?”

“Now that’s new. Who’s the guy?”

“Come on, get back to work,” Hanakouji scolds, turning towards Nobuya in particular. “Don’t be nosy. We’re on a deadline here. And Chikalin, please try to focus.”

Chikalin sighs, inaudibly, feeling saved. “Sorry. I will, Hanakouji-senpai.”

 

 

 

Lisa looks at Tatsuya like he’s a prize to be won—like he’s the only prize worth winning, more like. She wonders sometimes if Lisa ever gets tired of it. Lisa’s name is no stranger to rumors, sometimes petty and malicious and occasionally outright skeevy (like, drugs? Old men? Really?), but it’s only gotten worse once she started chasing after Tatsuya with the kind of determination that, as Chikalin overhears the teachers whisper once, she should’ve put into her studies instead. Just look at how horrendous her English marks are, my goodness, even Suou did better last year!

“People always put these… expectations on me,” Lisa complains. She’s making small talk with Chikalin while Miho and Mami wait in line for their food, and somehow the subject of midterms came up, and now, here they are. Really, Chikalin’s glad they even have the chance to talk at all. They’ve gone to Yumezaki together a few times since the first, but she can’t remember what they talked about on the way, if they did at all. “Like, just because of how I look, they expect me to speak perfect English? Isn’t that a bit prejudiced?”

“I can’t say it isn’t,” Chikalin says. She chews thoughtfully. “I think people focus too much on appearances.”

“Right? Appearances are everything these days. You’ve got people thinking they know you before you even tell them your name.”

Chikalin watches Lisa sip her canned soda. There’s pink smudging the rim of the can by the time she’s finished with it. She’d offer Lisa a tissue or a handkerchief, but there’s pink smudged around the corners of her lips, too, and Chikalin barely manages to dispel the imagery that comes all too quickly to her mind at the sight of that. She says, after a second: “I’m sorry. Don’t let it get to you, okay?” It doesn’t strike her how shallow and banal it sounds until she hears the words come out of her mouth.

(There are other things she could’ve opted to say, a vast inventory of options in the realm of possibility:

I understand. There are times when I feel the same. At least, I think so.

Hey, will you tell me something? Why do you keep chasing after a boy who won’t even look back at you the way I see you look at him?

I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.)

But Chikalin doesn’t, and to her slight surprise, Lisa smiles. There’s a slight bitter curl in the soft upturn of her lips, and it looks different from the ones Chikalin’s seen on her before. More true, somehow: like she’s being shown a part of Lisa that she can’t afford to show anyone else. It makes her feel warm—strangely, unfamiliarly—under her skin and up to her ears, and she wonders. Is this alright?

Chikalin swallows.

“Toh hsieh, Chikalin. Thanks. Really, I mean it. Ah, they’re calling for me already. See you later, okay?”

The smile she gives to Mami and Miho afterwards doesn’t look like that. This is something Chikalin doesn’t notice until later, long after Lisa’s left the restaurant, giggling loudly with her friends. But, she remembers it. A part of her, juvenile and hopeful, wonders if she’ll ever see her smile like that again. The thought is erased from her mind the next instant. She finishes the rest of the burger; crumples up the wrapper and tosses it into the trash. The moment of satisfaction, though she hadn’t expected it in the first place, never comes.

 

 

 

The next time she sees Lisa, school has ended, and she’s holding an envelope in her hand. She looks like she’s in a hurry, and her face is a bit flushed, and it’s then that Chikalin pauses, still, one foot scarcely in front of the other. Oh, she thinks.

Oh.

Lisa swivels on her feet, an immediate act, and grabs onto both of her shoulders. Her face is close, her eyes too lively, too bright. Chikalin doesn’t edge herself back, conscious of the fact or not.

“Chikalin! Have you seen Tatsuya? This is urgent!”

“Um,” she replies. “I think he’s at the back?”

“Thanks, Chikalin! You’re a lifesaver!” She dashes off down the hall without a second thought, her skirt fluttering like a girl from a rose-tinted romance, or a daytime dream from long ago. She disappears, like her illusionary counterpart, all too quickly.

Chikalin sighs. “Good luck,” is the only thing she manages to say, despite all. But, she doesn’t think Lisa heard. It stings, mostly because she meant it.

 

 

 

She doesn’t see Lisa around for a while after that. Then again, it’s not surprising; a lot of things happened since then. (Lisa apparently became an idol, and accidentally confessed to the wrong guy on the radio. Something like that?) The fact that masked cultists and Nazis are invading Sumaru out of what logically should be  _freaking nowhere_ gets quickly tossed away from her list of concerns when Chikalin sees Lisa enter the diner, Tatsuya and the pretty reporter and the two boys from Kasu strangely absent for the first time in what feels like—a few hours? Forever? She hasn’t been able to keep track of time for a while now. Maybe the heartbreak is getting to her head somehow.

In any case, “Heartbroken Chikalin” sounds a heck of a lot worse than her preferred title. She better get over this quickly.

“Lisa!” Chikalin greets, cheery as always. “What’s up? Where’s everyone else?”

“We were training at the factory in Kounan before facing Eikichi’s shadow and I got reeeally hungry, so I excused myself… Wait, that’s not important. Chikalin. I confessed to Tatsuya.”

“Chikalin heard. It was broadcast live on the radio station, right?” She tries to sound nonchalant as she says it.

“What? Ng hai! Chikalin! That’s not what I’m talking about! That was a  _huge_  mistake.” She flails both arms up into the air, eyes wide, apparently embarrassed at bringing up the incident. “I… confessed to him, later on. For real.”

“You don’t seem to be very happy about it, though…?”

“That’s to be expected,” Lisa replies. “Tatsuya turned me down. He likes someone else. Hey, do I look that depressed to you?” She breaks out into a grin.

“Well, um. I’m sorry? I don’t know what to say, Lisa… Chikalin’s not an expert in heartbreak. And you look fine.”

“That’s alright. I learned a few things about myself in the process, too. Back then, even I knew that I only liked Tatsuya for selfish reasons. I was a terrible girl. But somewhere along the way… I started falling for him for real. But he rejected me, and I’m…” Lisa seems wistful somehow, almost as if she’s glad to be rejected. “Well, I’m fine with it. I respect his feelings. I just felt that I should tell you this, since Sheba and Mee-ho… aren’t around right now.” She punctuates this with a sigh, the rise and fall of her small shoulders. “Um, I’m not actually that hungry. I’ll be off now. Thanks for listening, Chikalin!”

“Lisa,” Chikalin says, a sudden burst of bravery urging her on and keeping her afloat. “Do you—how should Chikalin put this… Would you like a hug? The next best thing I can offer you is info, and I don’t think that’ll help you much, so…”

“Yeah,” Lisa says. Her smile falters, but not completely; a little at a time, like cracks on a glassy surface. “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

She stretches out both arms and pulls her in. The future is uncertain, in more ways than one, but Chikalin thinks that, at least for now, she can be content with this.


End file.
